 "No global expansion plans, focus on India's growth: Dream11 CEO Harsh Jain")
Fantasy gaming platform Dream11 has no plans of expanding to global markets, Harsh Jain, co-founder and chief executive officer of the company, said during the Startup Mahakumbh event in New Delhi on Tuesday.
“A lot of people have asked why we don’t go global. My answer has always been — why? We have a very unique advantage. We have a domestic market which is one-sixth of the world’s population. As an Indian, you have a huge advantage,” Jain said in a fireside chat.
Dream11 is one of three gaming unicorns — companies valued at over $1 billion — in the country, alongside Games24x7 and Mobile Premier League.
“We are the country with the largest young population. We have tailwinds of a government that is pushing technology forward more than ever before. We must take advantage of this amazing opportunity,” he said.
Jain claimed that Dream11 currently has around 220 million users in India and still sees more room to grow.
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“We don’t allow non-Indians to play. We only allow Indians. Every year, we have been able to grow. We have been operational for the past 16 years. After 15 years, we had 150 million people on Dream11. Last year, we added 55 million more users to the platform. The growth and depth of this market is unbelievable,” he said.
A majority of users on the platform are between the ages of 25 and 60 and hail from smaller towns. Only 28 per cent of them belong to the country’s Tier-I and Tier-II cities.
This comes at a time when Indian real-money gaming companies are grappling with regulatory challenges and a new 28 per cent blanket goods and services tax.
According to Jain, the company is also bullish about integrating artificial intelligence (AI) to bolster its operations.
“Sports is an area where we can deeply use AI because the availability of sports data is good. We have set up an innovation centre in partnership with Columbia University in the US where we are working on machine learning, reinforcement learning, and I think we have a lot to do in AI and sports,” Jain said.
Sports, he added, can use AI in use cases such as assisting in team selection, providing statistics, and filtering sports news.
Revenue from the Indian fantasy sports industry grew 31 per cent to reach Rs 6,800 crore in 2021-22 (FY22). This figure is expected to cross Rs 25,240 crore by 2026-27 at 33 per cent compound annual growth rate, according to a recent report by the Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports and Deloitte India.
With over 300 fantasy sports platforms and an estimated 180 million users, India is the fastest-growing fantasy sports market in the world. The sector, which was valued at Rs 75,000 crore in FY22, is projected to reach 500 million in the next five years.